CALGARY CLASSICAL ACADEMY

The Calgary Classical Academy is a tuition-free, classical charter school. We are serving grades K-8 in the 2023/2024 academic year, and plan to expand our grade offerings each year to deliver a full K-12 program

 We offer an academically rigorous and traditional liberal arts education, equipping students with the virtues, knowledge, and habits befitting free citizens.

What is a classical education?

A classical education aims to preserve, transmit, and build upon the wisdom of past generations — not to dismantle or repudiate it. It relies on knowledge-rich curricula and teacher-led classrooms, and is centred on great and enduring works of art, literature, and philosophy. Through the study of classical works from around the world, students nurture a sense of philosophical wonder. They learn to inhabit different perspectives, think deeply about life’s most fundamental questions, and develop intellectual, moral, and aesthetic discernment.

Although academically rigorous, a true liberal arts education is not limited to making students narrowly useful or equipping them for material success. Recalling Confucius, we hold that “an educated person is not a tool.” Children are not merely future workers; they are future friends, spouses, neighbours, parents, and citizens. They are bearers of souls, which thirst after knowledge of the true and the good. A classical education prepares students not only to live, but to live virtuously and with purpose.

Our Difference

  • Knowledge-rich liberal arts curriculum

  • Emphasis on virtue and character development

  • Centred on classic works of art, literature, & philosophy

  • Smartphone-free environment

  • Outdoor education programs

  • French, Mandarin, and Latin language instruction

  • A culture of open inquiry, leisure, and truth-seeking

“There is really only one liberal study that deserves the name — because it makes a person free — and that is the pursuit of wisdom.”

— Seneca

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Guiding principles

With Plato, we understand that the pursuit of truth is entwined with the practice of virtue. The highest aspiration of education is therefore to foster moral excellence. Our goal is to help students cultivate the mind and the heart, impart a love of wisdom and beauty, and form the habits of temperance and self-mastery that will enable them to live good, healthy, and purposeful lives.

“This is that life above all others which man should live, in the contemplation of divine beauty; this makes man immortal.”

— Plato (Symposium)

About charter schools

Alberta charter schools are public, tuition-free programs with unique philosophical or pedagogical approaches. They operate independently from the central bureaucracy of large district school boards, being governed instead by autonomous non-profit organizations. This allows us to offer exceptional educational experiences to all interested students, regardless of background, postal code, or income level.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • The Calgary Classical Academy is offering programs for pupils in grades K-8 in the 2023/2024 academic year. We will continue adding to our grade offerings each year until we offer a full K-12 program.

  • We welcome pupils from all socio-economic, religious, and ethnic backgrounds, and offer a community founded on friendship, conversation, respect for human dignity, and a shared love of wisdom.

    Our program is demanding, both academically and in its expectations for student behaviour. It is intended for learners who are committed to seeking moral and intellectual excellence.

  • Alberta charter schools are public, tuition-free programs with unique philosophical or pedagogical approaches. They operate independently from the central bureaucracy of large district school boards, being governed instead by autonomous non-profit organizations. This allows us to offer exceptional educational experiences to all interested students, regardless of background, postal code, or income level.

    Alberta is currently the only Canadian province with charter schools. Click here for more information on Alberta’s charter schools.

  • In the 2023/24 academic year, we will operate two campuses in Calgary.

    One Kindergarten through Grade 5 program will be housed at our original school site located in the Bridgeland community at 231 6th Street N.E.

    Another Kindergarten - Grade 8 program will operate in the Currie Barracks in Southwest Calgary. This location will later house additional secondary school grades.

  • Busing is available to families requiring it.

    About 75% of our families have indicated that they require transportation. Bus routes service all four quadrants of the city of Calgary with congregated community bus stops.

    A $975/year busing fee applies for pupils who require busing service.

  • The Calgary Classical Academy is a tuition-free public charter school. We do not charge any tuition for program instruction.

    Like other public schools, however, pupils are required to provide a small instructional resource fee. Additional fees may apply for enrichment activities such as field trips and extracurricular programming that are not funded by the Alberta Ministry of Education.

    For a full schedule of fees, and information on fee waivers for low-income families, visit our School Fees page.

  • Charter schools in Alberta are non-sectarian, and are not affiliated with any particular faith tradition.

    However, we aim to provide an environment that is respectful of children and families’ faith practices, supports students’ moral formation, and orients them toward what is true, good, and enduring.

  • We are currently accepting applications for pupils who will be entering grades K-8 in the 2023/2024 academic year. Click here to complete an application for your child.

    Please note that enrolment is not confirmed until a formal offer of enrolment has been made by the Calgary Classical Academy, and accepted by the child’s parents or guardians. Enrolment offers will be made beginning in early 2023.

  • Should enrolment applications exceed the maximum capacity for that grade, eligible pupils will be entered into a lottery, which will determine their position on a wait list.

  • The Calgary Classical Academy is a distinctive community, bound together by a shared goal of seeking moral and intellectual excellence in a spirit of friendship.

    Our school uniform is a visible expression of this ideal: our students are part of a united community of learners, whose purpose transcends differences in socio-economic status, ethnic, religious, or racial background. In wearing their uniforms, students experience a sense of pride and belonging, and are reminded of their obligation to represent their school community well.

    School uniforms serve several other important functions. They foster an environment that is conducive to learning by removing potential sources of distraction, anxiety, and peer competition. A uniform, properly fitted, worn and cared for, demonstrates respect for others and for oneself. It also helps to develop the student’s sense of propriety — that is, appropriateness in inward feeling and outward conduct, including through the observance of proper rituals and customs. By cultivating good outward habits in dress and decorum, students begin to internalize these habits. Finally, uniforms can encourage students in the development of an authentic personality, defined not through artificial expressions of individuality, but through the cultivation of inner virtues, talents, interests, habits, and traits that comprise genuine character.

    For more information about our school uniforms and where to purchase them, please visit our Uniform Policy page.

  • The Calgary Classical Academy will deliver the Alberta provincial programs of study using a distinct, classical approach. For example:

    • Students will study classical works of literature, philosophy (including sciences and mathematics), history, and art. Where possible, they will rely on primary texts and sources of information.

    • The pursuit of truth, beauty, and wisdom informs the approach to curriculum delivery, with an explicit goal of developing pupils’ capacity for clear reasoning and sound moral, intellectual, and aesthetic judgement.

    • The curriculum shall be delivered in accordance with the “trivium” progression, in which the emphasis shifts through the stages of grammar in elementary school, logic/dialectic in middle school, and rhetoric in upper secondary school.

    • To the extent possible, subjects will be highly integrated and coherent both vertically (across grades) and horizontally (across disciplines).

    • In teaching sciences and maths (the classical ‘quadrivium’), we approach these as humane liberal arts, which illuminate the laws and ordering of the cosmos (for a fuller explanation, click here)

    We will also be developing our own, unique programs of study to supplement the Alberta curriculum. To view our K-12 curriculum map, visit our curriculum page.

  • Alberta Classical Academy opened an Edmonton campus in September 2023. We are currently accepting declarations of interest from parents in Red Deer and Lethbridge.


Have more questions that are not answered here?

View our parent information session video, or email office.calgary@classicalacademy.ca